Time to take off our water wings and start swimming in the part of the pool where your toes can't touch the bottom. It's time to start thinking like a jet fighter pilot. The first of these you will encounter in numbers in Warplanes show up at tier VII; the British Meteor and the Russian Kostikov. The Kostikov is a limited availability fighter, and the Gloster is up for sale all the time, so I'll put the focus of my first post 2.0 jet video on the offering from the Royal Air Force.

The Meteor is a great plane, mostly because she has been placed at tier VII rather than tier VIII alongside the Me.262 which was superior in pretty much every way. At tier VII, she is opposed entirely by prop-driven aircraft which she has no trouble outrunning in a straight line. The Meteor has to use this speed as both weapon and shield, as she does not have the high altitude performance of later jets from every tech tree. Even though she is denied the high alt performance her speed and quad cannon weaponry are more than enough to get the job done. Flying in tandem with a wingman or solo, you want to focus your attacks into straight lines that cut back and forth through the battlefield. Her hispano cannons are beginning to show their age by tier VII, so you may want to consider using Universal ammo on this premium aircraft to increase her damage output via fires on enemy planes.

Those 20mm guns will shred a fighter in moments if they fly in a straight line long enough for you to get a lead on them, but they are best used against enemy heavy fighters, low flying bombers and unwary attacker aircraft. With her dual engines giving her an okay amount of boost for a light fighter the Meteor can make excursions to extreme low altitude to take down a troublesome attacker before climbing back up to combat altitude.

The Meteor will teach you lessons that will be useful in all of the jet fighters that you encounter at the higher tiers; speed is very important, and so is being an evasive target without using turns that slow down your aircraft.

Good hunting!

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, Paris, 13 Nov. 1787